Supply/demand for software engineers - is there an over or under supply?

Sep 21, 2019 26 Comments

Leetcode interviews have spread throughout the industry and it has become increasingly hard to get a job offer now. Even startups are throwing LC mediums at candidates and expecting perfect solutions in 20min. Many companies like Facebook require 2 perfect LC solutions in 1 interview. It is very competitive and requires a ton of studying to reliably clear these interviews. Overall I think interviews are getting harder. Every company thinks they are google now and they’ve become obsessed nitpicking over useless toy algorithm problems.

The increasing difficulty seems to imply an OVERSUPPLY of engineers. Too many engineers looking for too few jobs so the standards are getting jacked up.

But then again TC for engineers has been growing well in excess of inflation for a while now. In the Boston area it’s been growing at about 7% YOY since 2010. This would imply an UNDERSUPPLY.

It seems contradictory to me that both standards and compensation are increasing in lock step.

26

comments

Want to comment? LOG IN or SIGN UP
  1. TOP
  2. RECENT
  3. OLD
 TOP 26 Comments
  • Microsoft / Eng
    RoLF71

    Go to company page Microsoft Eng

     RoLF71
    Undersupply of good engineers.

    Money has drawn in a lot of shitty ones though. This is why the difficulty has gone up.
    Sep 21, 2019 5
    • SAP
      SaUK45

      Go to company page SAP

      SaUK45
      Difficulty goes up because LeetCode has thousands of these trick questions with full detailed optimized solution that anyone can just go there and pick a few to throw the poor engineers.

      Microsoft 10 years ago stuck with easy LinkedList questions most of the time.
      Sep 21, 2019
    • Clover Light, LLC
      WhatWeWent

      Clover Light, LLC

      WhatWeWent
      I think LeetCode-style interviews are useful up to a point. It certainly filters out those that can’t even write a for loop or have no understanding of data structures and algorithms. However, I feel that blindly increasing the difficulty past a certain point is just selecting for those that have optimized for interview practice. My analogy is that we need people that can run a marathon but test them by having them run a sprint—fine to get rid of the couch potatoes but eliminates a lot of long distance runners too.

      Like everyone else, I don’t really have a solution. Given candidates A and B, where A has solved 1 problem with a brute-force algorithm, while B has solved 2 problems optimally, the logical choice is to go with B, all else being equal. But all else is never equal, so how do we tease that part out of a candidate? I think it requires a fair amount of subjectivity and judgement, which does not lend itself well to metrics-based decision making and hiring-at-scale. And the really frustrating thing is that candidates A and B can actually be the same person where the difference in performance feels more like luck rather than a true test of engineering skill.
      Sep 21, 2019
  • Capital One / Finance
    Rexxar

    Go to company page Capital One Finance

     Rexxar
    This won’t be popular on this app, but just be ready for the bubble to burst. SWE is being commoditized and after the next recession, God knows when that is, there will be a glutinous supply of SWEs. Until then, ride it out and make that money. We’re at least a few years away from that point imho.
    Sep 21, 2019 3
  • Spotify
    uroboros

    Go to company page Spotify

    uroboros
    There’s oversupply but since every man and his dog needs bespoke CMS and ton of other crapware to move a button few pixels off for no reason - there’s a huge need for people to perform all this scaffolding
    Sep 21, 2019 1
  • undersupply of Sr. level engineers. oversupply of entry level.
    Sep 21, 2019 0
  • Not according to our data 😏

    If you’re interested in these trends, I suggest you to follow LinkedIn’s economic graph report.

    https://economicgraph.linkedin.com/
    Sep 21, 2019 2